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"One often finds trees 'marked' by tigers beside some trail or path in, or adjacent to, a lair. Catlike, the tiger measures its full length upon a tree, standing in a convenient place, and with its powerful claws rips deeply through the bark.
"What a grenadier!" ejaculated Javert; "you've got a beard like a man, mother, but I have claws like a woman." And he continued to advance. The Thenardier, dishevelled and terrible, set her feet far apart, threw herself backwards, and hurled the paving-stone at Javert's head.
The beast reared up behind them, already he was making a slash with his claws; but he missed, ran on, reared up again aloft, and with his black paw aimed at the Count’s yellow hair.
None had heard the report of the pistol, and while the pomp of gold and crimson faded, and the sun rose into the blueness of morning, Mike lay still grasping the revolver, the blood flowing down his face, where he had fallen across the low bed, raised upon lions' claws and hung with heavy curtains. Receiving no answer, the servant had opened the door.
In another dash for the woods the fox plunged out of sight in a drift made soft by sedge sticking through, and before he could recover, the lynx's jaws closed on the back of his neck and the relentless claws had pierced his vitals. The justification of killing is self-preservation, and in this case the proof would have been the lynx making a meal of the fox. Did he do so? Not at all.
Then all at once a pitiful cry disturbs the pleasant greeting. The catastrophe which might have been foreseen has occurred. Narcissa came near enough to the upset and sprawling crab for it to catch her ear with its nippers, and then to bury all its six claws in her fur.
This was a remarkable example of force. On the other hand, although the lion frequently uses this dreadful power of striking when in full charge, there are many cases when the animal seizes simply with teeth and claws, like a tiger or others of the race. I am of opinion that the act of striking would depend upon the position of the animal or person attacked.
I have seen several examples of the tiger's attack upon man, and in no instance has the individual suffered from the shock of any blow; the tiger has seized, and driven deeply its claws into the flesh, and with this tremendous purchase it has held the victim, precisely as the hands of a man would clutch a prisoner; at the same time it has taken a firm hold with its teeth, and either killed its victim by a crunch of the jaws, or broken the shoulder-blade.
Bart saw that the long grayish claws were trembling. "How did you make the claws?" "Quite simple, really," Raynor beamed. "I injected protein compounds into the nail matrix, which speeded up nail growth terrifically, and then, as they grew, shaped them. Joining on those tiny muscles for the retracting mechanism was the tricky part though." Bart was moving his hands experimentally.
Meantime, down in the angle between the back wall and the base of the heap Lina was scratching furiously with all the eighteen great strong claws of her mighty feet. 'Ah, ha! said Curdie to himself, catching sight of her, 'if only they will leave us long enough to ourselves! With that he ran to the door, to see if there was any fastening on the inside.